Re: [PATCH mm-unstable v19 14/14] Documentation: mm: update the admin guide for mTHP collapse

[Lorenzo Stoakes <ljs@kernel.org>]

On Fri, Jun 05, 2026 at 10:14:21AM -0600, Nico Pache wrote:
> Now that we can collapse to mTHPs lets update the admin guide to
> reflect these changes and provide proper guidance on how to utilize it.
>
> Reviewed-by: Lorenzo Stoakes <ljs@kernel.org>
> Reviewed-by: Bagas Sanjaya <bagasdotme@gmail.com>
> Signed-off-by: Nico Pache <npache@redhat.com>

This is completely fine, and no blockers, but just a couple tiny things
below Claude brought up for a possible trivial follow up.

> ---
>  Documentation/admin-guide/mm/transhuge.rst | 49 ++++++++++++++--------
>  1 file changed, 32 insertions(+), 17 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/transhuge.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/transhuge.rst
> index b98e18c80185..23f8d13c2629 100644
> --- a/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/transhuge.rst
> +++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/transhuge.rst
> @@ -63,7 +63,8 @@ often.
>  THP can be enabled system wide or restricted to certain tasks or even
>  memory ranges inside task's address space. Unless THP is completely
>  disabled, there is ``khugepaged`` daemon that scans memory and
> -collapses sequences of basic pages into PMD-sized huge pages.
> +collapses sequences of basic pages into huge pages of either PMD size
> +or mTHP sizes, if the system is configured to do so.
>
>  The THP behaviour is controlled via :ref:`sysfs <thp_sysfs>`
>  interface and using madvise(2) and prctl(2) system calls.
> @@ -219,10 +220,10 @@ this behaviour by writing 0 to shrink_underused, and enable it by writing
>  	echo 0 > /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/shrink_underused
>  	echo 1 > /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/shrink_underused
>
> -khugepaged will be automatically started when PMD-sized THP is enabled
> +khugepaged will be automatically started when any THP size is enabled
>  (either of the per-size anon control or the top-level control are set
>  to "always" or "madvise"), and it'll be automatically shutdown when
> -PMD-sized THP is disabled (when both the per-size anon control and the
> +all THP sizes are disabled (when both the per-size anon control and the
>  top-level control are "never")

Claude was very pedantic and said we need a full stop here :P

This is not a blocker, obviously...!

>
>  process THP controls
> @@ -265,8 +266,8 @@ Khugepaged controls
>  -------------------
>
>  .. note::
> -   khugepaged currently only searches for opportunities to collapse to
> -   PMD-sized THP and no attempt is made to collapse to other THP
> +   khugepaged currently only searches for opportunities to collapse file/shmem
> +   to PMD-sized THP. Only anonymous memory will attempt to collapse to other THP
>     sizes.
>
>  khugepaged runs usually at low frequency so while one may not want to
> @@ -296,11 +297,11 @@ allocation failure to throttle the next allocation attempt::
>  The khugepaged progress can be seen in the number of pages collapsed (note
>  that this counter may not be an exact count of the number of pages
>  collapsed, since "collapsed" could mean multiple things: (1) A PTE mapping
> -being replaced by a PMD mapping, or (2) All 4K physical pages replaced by
> -one 2M hugepage. Each may happen independently, or together, depending on
> -the type of memory and the failures that occur. As such, this value should
> -be interpreted roughly as a sign of progress, and counters in /proc/vmstat
> -consulted for more accurate accounting)::
> +being replaced by a PMD mapping, or (2) physical pages replaced by one
> +hugepage of various sizes (PMD-sized or mTHP). Each may happen independently,
> +or together, depending on the type of memory and the failures that occur.
> +As such, this value should be interpreted roughly as a sign of progress,
> +and counters in /proc/vmstat consulted for more accurate accounting)::

So Claude said maybe it's worth mentioning that the per-mTHP counters are only
actually exposed through
/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/hugepages-<size>kB/stats/ and maybe worth
mentioning here too?

>
>  	/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/khugepaged/pages_collapsed
>
> @@ -308,16 +309,21 @@ for each pass::
>
>  	/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/khugepaged/full_scans
>
> -``max_ptes_none`` specifies how many extra small pages (that are
> -not already mapped) can be allocated when collapsing a group
> -of small pages into one large page::
> +``max_ptes_none`` specifies how many empty (none/zero) pages are allowed
> +when collapsing a group of small pages into one large page::
>
>  	/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/khugepaged/max_ptes_none
>
> -A higher value leads to use additional memory for programs.
> -A lower value leads to gain less thp performance. Value of
> -max_ptes_none can waste cpu time very little, you can
> -ignore it.
> +For PMD-sized THP collapse, this directly limits the number of empty pages
> +allowed in the 2MB region.
> +
> +For mTHP collapse, only 0 or (HPAGE_PMD_NR - 1) are supported. At
> +HPAGE_PMD_NR - 1, we collapse to the highest possible order. Any intermediate
> +value will emit a warning and mTHP collapse will default to max_ptes_none=0.
> +
> +A higher value allows more empty pages, potentially leading to more memory
> +usage but better THP performance. A lower value is more conservative and
> +may result in fewer THP collapses.
>
>  ``max_ptes_swap`` specifies how many pages can be brought in from
>  swap when collapsing a group of pages into a transparent huge page::
> @@ -337,6 +343,15 @@ that THP is shared. Exceeding the number would block the collapse::
>
>  A higher value may increase memory footprint for some workloads.
>
> +.. note::
> +   For mTHP collapse, khugepaged does not support collapsing regions that
> +   contain shared or swapped out pages, as this could lead to continuous
> +   promotion to higher orders. The collapse will fail if any shared or
> +   swapped PTEs are encountered during the scan.
> +
> +   Currently, madvise_collapse only supports collapsing to PMD-sized THPs
> +   and does not attempt mTHP collapses.
> +
>  Boot parameters
>  ===============
>
> --
> 2.54.0
>

Cheers, Lorenzo